Louis Blanc

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Louis Blanc
Signature Louis Blanc.PNG
1874/1877

Jean-Joseph-Charles-Louis Blanc (born October 29, 1811 in Madrid , † December 6, 1882 in Cannes ) was a French utopian socialist and founder of social democracy .

He sought to mitigate the effects of capitalism (such as unemployment ) by reforming the economy based on the political hegemony of the working class . His main work Organization of Work (L'organization du travail), published in 1839, is still of importance today when it first pronounced a right to work as a civil or human right.

Life

Blanc's father was an official in the Spanish Ministry of Finance at the time of King Joseph Bonaparte of Spain . After the fall of Napoleon I, the family became impoverished.

Blanc received his school education from 1821 to 1830 at the grammar school in Rodez . He then moved to Paris to work as a journalist. After this attempt failed, however, he initially took a position as a tutor with a large industrialist based in Arras. From 1834 he worked again in Paris as a journalist and writer. From 1839 to 1842 Blanc was editor-in-chief and publisher of the Revue du Progrès politique, social et litteraire . In the same functions he worked from 1841 to 1848 at the Revue indépendente and from 1843 also worked for La Réforme .

During the February Revolution of 1848 he became Chairman of the Workers' Parliament and Minister of Labor; but his attempts at reform (buying up mines and railways, centralizing the insurance industry, founding cooperatives , abolishing market-regulated prices, so-called national workshops for employing the unemployed) were largely unsuccessful. The price control for certain staple foods , which is still partly common in France today, goes back to his ideas on price maintenance . After the revolution of 1848 was put down, he had to go into exile until 1870, first in Belgium and later in England. He spent his last years partly as a member of the National Assembly , in which he belonged to the far left , but spoke out against the Paris Commune . During this time he was considered a political mentor for the then young MPs Jean Jaurès and Georges Clemenceau .

Works

  • Organization du travail (1839), Bureau de la Société de l'Industrie Fraternelle, Paris, 1847, 5th edition
  • Histoire de dix ans, 1830–1840 , Pagnerre, Paris, 1842, 2nd edition, Google Book
  • Histoire de la révolution française , Lacroix, Paris, 1878, 2nd edition, 15 volumes
  • with Jacques Crétineau-Joly: La contre-révolution, partisans, vendéens, chouans, émigrés 1794–1800
  • Lettres sur l'Angleterre (1866–1867)
  • Dix années de l'Histoire de l'Angleterre (1879–1881)
  • Questions d'aujourd'hui et de demain (1873-1884) .

literature

Web links

Commons : Louis Blanc  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Blanc, Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blanc, Jean-Joseph-Charles-Louis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French socialist
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH Madrid
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1882
Place of death Cannes